


all the tales the same (told before and told again)

by melodiousmadrigals



Series: wondertrev bingo 2020 [1]
Category: Wonder Woman (Movies - Jenkins)
Genre: (all happy endings), (major character REVIVAL?), Don't copy to another site, F/M, Fluff, Steve Trevor Lives, The Author Regrets Nothing, fluffy oneshots, masquerade balls, the author liberally picks and chooses what she wants from myth, the opposite of major character death, wondertrevbingo2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23813875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melodiousmadrigals/pseuds/melodiousmadrigals
Summary: A series of unconnected one-shots written for @wondertrevnet's Lock Out Bingo. All can be read separately; I just didn't want to clutter the tag.Ch. 1 - Prompt: firsts. Steve finds out that Diana's missed out on a fun part of childhood and wants to rectify it.Ch. 2 - Prompt: dancing. Diana ends up dancing with a handsome stranger at a masquerade ball...Ch. 3 - Prompt: hurt/comfort. Diana gets injected with an alien venom that sends her into a fevered delirium, and her mind conjures up the person she wants to see most...or does it?Ch. 4 - Prompt: Steve's resurrection. In the aftermath of the battle with Ares, Diana remembers a story from her childhood that sends her on a quest to fix what seems to be unfixable.Ch. 5 - Prompt: omg they were quarantined!Ch. 6 - Prompt: colors
Relationships: Diana (Wonder Woman)/Steve Trevor
Series: wondertrev bingo 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1739011
Comments: 40
Kudos: 164
Collections: Wondertrev Lockout Bingo





	1. firsts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve finds out that Diana missed out on an important part of childhood (and, frankly, adulthood) and endeavors to rectify that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no beta we die valiantly  
> characters not mine  
> enjoy!

"When is your birthday?" Steve asks, one morning, slightly out of the blue. "I've just realized that I have no idea." 

Diana looks up from her computer, where she's reading the news. (Steve was a little disappointed to learn, when he woke up in the 21st century, that print newspapers are somewhat obsolete, but their morning routine hasn't suffered too much for it.) 

"I don't either," Diana admits. 

"Wait, _what_?" 

"My mother used to tell me her story about my birth—creation—but she never said when it was." 

"You mean—you didn't celebrate?" 

Diana laughs. "No, we didn't. Time is a slightly different concept on Themyscira. We track the seasons and the years, but they do not mean nearly so much as they do here."

"But you never—you never got a party? You never got a cake?" 

Diana shakes her head. "We rarely fêted an individual; when we celebrated, it was about the community." 

It makes sense, from what Steve knows about the Amazons, but it still shocks him that no one ever celebrated Diana's existence. (He does that quietly every day, but he generally thinks _everyone_ should. He also can't believe that no one thought to celebrate when she was a _child_.) 

"Really," says Diana. "It's hardly an issue." 

"Out of curiosity, what does your passport say, then?" Steve asks, because he knows he's seen her passport, but can't for the _life_ of him remember anything except her unfairly attractive picture. ( _No one's_ government-issued ID should look that good, not even a goddess's.) 

"Oh," says Diana. "My mother once made mention that the olive trees were in blossom when I came to be, and that usually happens at the end of April into May, so I just chose the first of May, back in 1918, and never changed it." 

"At least you get your birthday off every year," says Steve. 

"A happy accident, yes." Assuming the conversation has reached its natural end, Diana goes back to her article and Steve stares into his coffee cup, scheming. 

* * *

Steve's family, back at the end of the 19th century, was not wealthy by any stretch. His father was a farmer, and his mother was an immigrant who came to the country with literally nothing but the clothes on her back. He and his siblings worked before and after their school day, and everything they had was homemade or secondhand or both. But every year, without fail, his mother made each of them a birthday cake and managed to make the day special. 

He can't imagine _ignoring_ a child's birthday, and even though he knows it wasn't a malicious thing on Hippolyta's part—simply a difference in priorities—he can't help but be indignant on Diana's behalf. 

It's a simple solution, really. May 1st is coming up.

 _He's_ going to make Diana a birthday cake. And throw her a birthday party, while he's at it. 

* * *

He makes detailed plans, and sends invites to their friends, emphasizing that it's meant to be a surprise party. There's a fine line to walk between big enough to be a proper party, and low-key enough that it's something she'll genuinely enjoy. 

He decides, in the end, to make it like one of their house parties, but slightly bigger, and with cake. 

He has a little bit of trouble deciding what her first birthday cake should be. 

Carrot cake is a contender, but doesn't scream 'birthday' to him, and lemon, though delicious, seems too formal, somehow. He ends up back at chocolate, and decides to spruce it up with raspberries. (He watches _Bake Off,_ okay? He knows you need good flavor balance.) 

* * *

Steve has several elaborate excuses planned for what Diana may need to leave the apartment to get, so that everyone can arrive for the surprise. As it turns out, he needs none of them. 

"You're going into work? Diana, it's a national holiday!" he exclaims. 

"Not in the United States," she says simply. "And the MET is being very difficult about the piece we're trying to get on loan from them for the upcoming exhibit. If I miss this meeting they've suddenly called for, they will use it against us." 

"What time will you be home?" asks Steve, dismayed and trying to calculate the time difference. 

"Six, maybe seven if I'm lucky. Later if I'm not. I have no idea how long they have budgeted for arguing about trades." 

Steve knows from experience that this is optimistic, and will skew towards the later end of her estimate. The Americans are second only to the British in terms of both their unwillingness to part with artifacts for even the smallest amount of time and general bitchiness. 

Since Steve has 18h30 earmarked as the arrival time, he pleads, " _Please_ try to be home by seven. And call, on your way home, so that I can have wine chilled." 

"Will do," says Diana, and kisses him on her way out the door. 

* * *

In the end, it all works out in his favor. People like to be fashionably late, so the last stragglers are arriving at quarter past seven when Diana calls to say she's finally on her way home. 

"We reached an agreement, _finally,_ " she says, the pleasure apparent in her voice. "And we did not even have to go beyond the pre-approved inducement reciprocal-loan pieces!" 

"That's excellent! I'll see you soon. We'll celebrate." 

Diana is none the wiser to his cheeky comment. 

" _Bisous, ciao_." 

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Steve has everyone wrangled and ready, when he hears the key in the door. 

"Happy birthday, Diana!" everyone shouts as she enters. 

"What's all this?" The shock on her face is evident, and there's confusion too, but so far he doesn't pick up on any annoyance. 

"We're celebrating your existence," announces Steve, from his spot at the back of the room, "because you make each and every one of our lives better, Diana. Plain and simple. Happy birthday, love." 

A cheer goes up, and friends crowd to hug Diana and offer greetings. 

He can see her smile from across the room, the way her eyes light up as she hugs her friends and chats with them. Satisfied, he slips into the kitchen to arrange some of the food, and make sure the cake is ready for the rousing chorus of _happy birthday_ that'll come in due time. 

* * *

He's put lots of candles in the cake, and written _Happy Birthday, Diana!_ in neat cursive across the top of the third tier, and piped raspberry-flavored buttercream roses around the bottom. It's pretty spectacular work for an amateur, if he does say so himself. 

Their friends tell her to make a wish and blow out the candles, and her eyes meet his, bright in the low light and full of promise, just before she turns and manages to extinguish all of them in one breath. Her friends cheer again, and they cut the cake. 

(It tastes pretty good, too.) 

* * *

Later, she finds him on their terrace, chatting with Amélie from down the hall, who quickly extricates herself to go find more punch, and possibly her wife, Meriem. 

Diana knocks her shoulder gently against his. "You made me a birthday cake," she says, sounding a little choked up. 

"I did," he says lightly. 

"I've never _had_ a birthday cake before."

The way she says it, Steve's heart breaks just a little bit again. Never mind celebrating on Themyscira, she's been in a world that very much _does_ observe birthday culture for a hundred years and no one has ever thought to make her a cake? "It was high time you got one, obviously." 

"You're miraculous, you know?" 

"Okay, the cake wasn't _that_ good." 

A desperate little laugh escapes her throat. "This isn't really about the cake. Which was excellent, by the way. It's just—you. You made me my first birthday cake and threw me my first birthday party, just because you could."

"Wow, the bar is _so_ low." He's trying not to telegraph how appalled he really is, but Diana continues as though he hasn't spoken.

"And you did it in a way that I would enjoy." 

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response. You know what? No, I am: there'd've been no point to doing it if you were going to be miserable." 

Diana snorts, because this whole thing is so _Steve_. Quietly, deeply thoughtful, with a little bit of self-deprecating bravado. "I love you."

"I love you too, and I'm going to aggressively make you a cake on every birthday from now on." 

Another proper laugh bubbles up. "I suspected as much." 

* * *

She gets a birthday cake every year after, without fail, although none of them ever taste quite as sweet to her memory as the first one. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! stay safe xx


	2. dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being Bruce’s friend lands Diana in some pretty interesting places, including a masquerade ball, and she finds herself dancing with a handsome stranger. But there’s a certain magic to anonymity that might keep it from becoming something more…Three years, three dances, plenty of fluff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> buckle up, kiddos, i'm back on my bullshit
> 
> as always: no beta, we die valiantly

_2018_

Being Bruce's friend lands Diana in some pretty funny places, she's found. 

Once, it was just outside an Antarctic research lab in the middle of a penguin colony. Once, it was the in-palace bowling alley of an Emirati prince. By comparison, a masquerade ball is fairly tame. 

He claims it's so he has an extra pair of eyes, but she wonders if maybe he's just tired of going to these events alone. 

They dance the first dance together, a proper waltz with perfect posture and 20 centimeters of distance in their frame. 

"If you could stay here and mingle," he says as the dance ends, voice low and gruff, "that would be excellent." 

She nods, and makes her way along the perimeter of the ballroom floor, doing a mental catalogue of the entrances and exits while telegraphing that she could use a dance partner.

It works. Before she's even reached the refreshment table, she's asked back onto the dance floor. 

The third dance in, a dark-haired man with an almost-full Venetian mask asks her to dance. She was just about to circle back and find Bruce, but the detailing on his mask—cogs and swirling time-hands, like a deconstructed antique clock—is the most striking she's seen all night, and on a whim, she accepts. 

It's a mistake, or maybe it isn't. 

Her partner turns out to be horribly, unfairly diverting. He's witty and intelligent, and a naturally gifted dancer (even if he's not a technically perfect one). Diana finds she hasn't smiled this much in a long time, as one dance somehow turns into three while they spin across the floor. 

They somehow get into a light-hearted argument about the relative merits of various breakfast foods, and she finishes an impassioned defense of pancakes only to find him grinning at her, and it seems natural, familiar, and for a second she wishes she could see his eyes better, wondering if and how they might crinkle with his smile—

"If you say so, Angel," he says, interrupting her train of thought. 

"Angel?" she laughs, and he nods at the golden wings on her mask, slightly reminiscent of armor she once wore. (She chose the mask because it fit the theme and also because it obscured her hairline, and cheekbones; if Bruce really has brought her for surveillance, she's coming prepared.) 

Partway through the evening—their fifth dance, or maybe their sixth—she sees Bruce has descended back into the main ballroom. He gives her a little nod, and she takes it for what it is: an acknowledgement that so far, everything is fine. It suits her well; she didn't really want to stop chatting with the mystery man. 

They end up talking for the rest of the night. His humor is dry and his opinions are good, and there's something about him that she can't quite put her finger on. Maybe it's the zinging, insuppressible _attraction_ she feels, the likes of which she hasn't felt since—well, it's been awhile, anyways. 

There's a waltz winding down when his question comes. "Will you let me take off your mask, when the evening is over?"

She wants to, she thinks. But this night has been so magical, and for a second, because of the uncanny similarities, she's allowed herself to imagine that this stranger is Steve. She doesn't want that to end. Wants to keep this perfect memory to herself, just this once. 

"No." 

"Why?" It's not accusatory, the way men often are. She doesn't get the sense that he's angry about it, just that he wants to know. 

They're still swaying in gentle circles when she says, "You sound a little like someone I knew, once upon a time." 

"I won't press," he says, "but I do have a request. Next year, if you're here, if we find each other again—would you consider it?" 

He gently disengages and kisses the back of her gloved hand. 

"My mum used to tell me that at this time of year, anything is possible. Just think about it, would you?" He says, backing away. 

"How would we even find each other?" she calls after. 

The man shrugs. "A minute ago you weren't even considering it. I can take my chances with fate. Goodbye, Angel." 

For a moment, she thinks she's going to run after him. Diana is intimately acquainted with fate, and it's never done her any favors. But she lets him go. She'll forget all about this in a few weeks.

Sighing, she moves in the opposite direction to look for Bruce. Just because she's been otherwise occupied doesn't mean she hasn't been surveying the room like he asked, but there's been nothing suspicious. She'll check in with him, and go home. 

She's in need of a bubble bath, and maybe a good cry while she's at it. 

* * *

_2019_

Diana, whose memory is crisp as a fresh-fallen autumn leaf, does not forget the stranger she danced with for most of the evening. She wonders, sometimes, what would have happened if they'd unmasked. It would have become real, would've led to disappointment. Still, there are days that she forgets why she said no.

On one of those days, she texts Bruce. 

_Didn't think it was your thing. Happy to have you, though,_ arrives five minutes later. 

She's just booked herself for another dance.

* * *

Her dark-haired stranger isn't there.

She's looked for him, but despite taking several turns around the room with people who are the right build, she hasn't found him. 

It was stupid to assume she might find him, that he'd even be here, that he even remembered, a year on. 

She ducks out of the ballroom, past a thick velvet curtain, and out a door onto a terraced patio leading down into the garden. The blast of cold air is a welcome respite from the stuffiness of the ball, the sticky warmth of so many humans in a confined space. 

She looks to the sky, and takes a deep breath. She's suffered disappointments far greater than this one. Up above, the night is clear, and the stars are bright. Keep calm and carry on, as Etta would say. 

Diana has nearly collected herself enough to march back into the ballroom when the door opens and light and music from the party spill out. 

It's a tall blonde man in an intricate Venetian mask and long coattails. He looks nearly as surprised to see her as she is to see him. 

"Sorry," he splutters. "Didn't mean to interrupt. I can just—"

"No," Diana interjects. "I was just about to go." 

The man pauses first, and Diana doesn't catch up 'til a second later, as she's moving towards the door and he says, stunned, "Angel?" 

"But you've got dark hair," is what falls out of her mouth without her brain's permission, even though there are plenty of other things to say, including _I didn't think I would find you_ or even just _hi_. 

Half of his mouth quirks up in a smile. "That was part of last year's costume. This is the real stuff," he says, gesturing vaguely at his head. 

"Oh."

"You know," he says, still smiling, "I didn't think you would come."

"I thought about not attending."

"I'm glad you did."

"I think I am, too."

"Would you care to dance?"

"What, out here?" She has to admit it's appealing: there are no other party-goers under the stars, but the faint strains of music can still be heard. 

She accepts his proffered hand, and just like that, they're pressed up against one another, twirling 'round and 'round the terrace until Diana's head is thrown back in an exuberant laugh. This is the feeling she was chasing, coming back here. 

As the soft strains from inside signal slower music, their dancing becomes less frenetic, and soon they are swaying in place, barely moving at all.

He's staring at her openly, but she can't quite make herself meet his gaze. She's not used to this sort of instant attraction skimming through her veins, disrupting her judgement. 

"I did this, once," says her dancing partner, just barely above a whisper. "One or two lifetimes ago." 

"Tell me about her," Diana murmurs, because she doesn't think she can bear admitting that she has, too.

"Kind, and passionate," he says without hesitation. "Expressive eyes." 

"What happened?"

"We were victims of circumstance, each bound by our own duties." 

Diana is about to question him further when she feels something hit her cheek. She looks up. 

It's snowing. 

Big, fluffy flakes are falling gently, sticking to their clothes and hair. 

Ache balloons from deep within her, pressing against her chest, her diaphragm, her breastbone, clawing to get out. She wants to scream with the sudden weight of the memories. It is too much, these human emotions; they are going to drown her. 

She pushes away. 

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I can't—" 

"What's this?" 

As she pulled away, her sleeve must have slipped, revealing a watch that very much does not go with the masquerade aesthetic, one that she can't bear to take off. 

"Not part of my costume. I have to go." She's pulled out of his grasp, has turned on her heel, is halfway to the door. 

"I wish we had more time!" 

The words stop her dead in her tracks in a way no others could. 

"What did you just say?" It comes out a little strangled. She can hear him moving behind her, but she can't turn around. It's just her mind playing tricks on her. 

"I wish we had more time," he says again, firm. 

There's blood rushing in her ears, and she's suddenly acutely aware of the racing thrum of her pulse. If she turns around and it isn't Steve, she's going to be crushed, gutted. 

"Diana, please," his voice is soft, pleading. 

Slowly, cautiously, Diana turns around. When she opens her eyes, it's him. _Steve._ Unmasked, and staring at her like she's hung the moon and all the stars, like she is a celestial body herself. 

"I _found_ you." 

His hands come up, ever so delicately, cupping her cheek before moving into her hair. She feels the fastening of the mask give way, and then he's removing it with such care and precision that it doesn't catch on a single strand of hair. 

"That's better." It's barely a whisper, nothing more than an exhale of air, but it unfreezes her. 

And suddenly, she's in his arms, holding on for dear life, as he whispers soft comforts into her ear. 

It's really, truly Steve. 

Maybe this is her life; maybe she only gets him for a few weeks every half-century or so. She'll still take it over the alternative. 

* * *

_2020_

The orchestra strikes its first note, and the man in front of her bows grandly, offering his hand. 

Diana accepts it, and he pulls her into a crisp, swirling box step, his eyes shining behind this year's mask, one that only serves to amplify their already deep blue. 

"It's a little cliché, don't you think?"

"Dancing with you? Never."

"Steve!" she laughs. He can be such a flatterer. "I mean being at the ball. What is the point of being at a masquerade if your identity is not actually a secret?" 

"Dancing with you," Steve says again. His mask does an excellent job of obscuring his facial features, but she can still see the laughter in his eyes. 

"Incorrigible!"

"You wouldn't have me any other way."

She stops their complicated step pattern, right in the middle, and he crashes into her as a result, their bodies pressed together. "No, I would not." 

The rest of the dancers swirl on, but they stay there, on the margins of the floor, just swaying, more in time with each other than with the music. 

* * *

They end up making several turns around the ballroom, laughing their way through most of it. Steve likes to be spun just as much as he enjoys spinning Diana, so they draw a few stares with their antics. As the song comes to a close, Steve dips Diana dramatically, luxuriating in her bright peal of laughter, then kisses her nose as he pulls her back up.

The music fades out, and a new, slower tune takes its place. "Do you want to sneak out and make breakfast-for-dinner at home?" 

"You do realize how long I spent on this outfit?" 

"Yes. So, pancakes?"

"Obviously." 

They slip out of the ballroom, giggling like children, and into the cold, crisp winter air. It's not snowing this year, but there's already a layer on the ground, shiny and frozen and making the world look like a holiday card. 

Steve turns and immediately makes to remove Diana's mask. 

She laughs but doesn't stop him. "Every year. What is your vendetta against my masks, hmm?" 

"Can't see your face." He says it so plainly, so genuinely that she can hardly tease him for it. 

"Steve, that's what a mask is _for_." Okay, maybe she can find a little bit of something to tease him with, in her bemusement. 

He brushes an escaped curl back behind her ear, gazes directly into her eyes. 

"Your face is so beautifully expressive, Diana. I don't want to miss out on it." 

" _Steve._ " She ducks her head, blushing, her smile fond. 

"See, right there. The crinkle around your eyes. The way you scrunched your nose. You're just proving my point." 

She can't help it; she kisses him, slow and deep, right there on the pavement under a glowing street-lamp. It's languid and soft, but consuming enough that eventually they break apart, in need of air.

"I believe I was promised pancakes," Steve says, forehead still pressed against hers. 

Her grin, she thinks, must be blinding, because she's so incandescently happy. "Yes, I believe you were." 

They walk home, hand-in-hand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! if you enjoyed, drop a comment/kudos, and please stay safe xx


	3. hold me (like you'll never let me go)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: hurt/comfort. 
> 
> Diana gets injected with an alien venom that sends her into a fevered delirium, and her mind conjures up the person she wants to see most...or does it? (Happy ending, promise.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this Year Of Our Covid 2020, i have stopped trying to make Steve's resurrection plausible and/or pristinely executed. he just. shows up because it's What We Deserve. this author is broken. deus ex machina, bitches. peace out. 
> 
> (No beta we die valiantly; 
> 
> Characters not mine; 
> 
> Enjoy!)

It happens when Diana gets injected with something not of this world. 

Anyone but her would be dead in an instant; instead, as her body fights the thing from the inside out, she's sent into something of a fugue state, untethered from everything except the pain. 

Reality bends around her, and her thoughts feel disjointed, fragmented. She's seen what fever does to human bodies, and distantly connects it to what's happening to her now, but then there's a wave of pain and her body shakes and she loses her grasp on any coherent thought. 

Everything is too bright, and sounds and color becomes distorted. She thinks she moves—or someone moves her—because the surface she's laying on has too much give to be the hard rock of the battleground pumice field they were on. 

In the midst of her fevered delirium, someone touches her cheek. 

"Easy, easy there." It's a voice that she hasn't heard in _decades_ , but one she isn't surprised her mind is conjuring for her now. 

"Have I died?" It takes two, three, four slurred attempts for the words to actually come out, and in a language not dead to the modern world.

"No, Diana, you haven't, you're fighting, you've _gotta keep fighting,_ " Steve's voice pleads, and with a Herculean effort, Diana forces her eyes open, because maybe if the alien serum has conjured up his voice, it's conjured up his body, too. She's longed to see the blue of his eyes again. 

There's too much light, and she blinks back the stabbing pain it sends ricocheting through her skull, and then she's rewarded by his face, earnest and swimming in front of her. Oh, how she's missed it. 

"My love," she whispers—thinks she whispers, anyways. She blinks again, and everything goes dark, and the next thing she knows—

"Stay with me, Diana. _Please,_ stay with me." He's begging her, a desperate quality in his voice that she's not even sure he achieved on the airfield. 

It's funny, because he didn't stay with _her,_ he _died_ , and now he's telling her that she has to stay alive, keep fighting, go on by _herself_ — 

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, love. I know you're angry that I left you, but I need you, and you're stronger than this, Diana, I know you are." 

She's not _angry,_ she's just still nursing the pieces of a broken heart, one that she suspects will never be quite whole. 

"Fuck. _Diana_ , I'm so sorry. I just—I need you to be strong, one more time. _Please._ " His voice breaks, and she hates that sound, hates how distressed he is.

And it hurts _so much_. Her veins feel like they're on fire, and everything aches. She wishes she could keep the thoughts straight and ordered in her head. It feels like it would be _so easy_ to just let go, to make it stop—

"I know I have to stay," she whimpers, "but I am tired of living in a world that doesn't have you in it. I don't want you to be gone again when I wake up." 

Diana hears a sob, and she's not sure if it's her or him. It doesn't really matter. 

She keeps fighting, and when the knives in her veins subside and the throbbing of her head decreases, she allows herself to slip into the cool, dark, welcoming abyss of unconsciousness. 

* * *

Diana slides back into consciousness slowly. The last minutes, hours, days seem hazy; she knows they existed, but her usually crisp recollection is relegated to a murky mire, as though someone put cellophane over her memories and shoved them into a dark cupboard. 

She should probably be glad of how muddled her memories are, given how much pain she was in. She does remember, unfortunately, that she saw Steve during her fever dream. 

It's left an entirely different kind of ache in her chest, one that makes her feel like she's going to burst from the sadness of it. 

Now that she thinks about it, the rest of her body feels heavy, and she's acutely aware of every point of contact with the bed under her, as though she's just done a twisted mindfulness exercise. Someone's gripping her hand, too. She can feel the pressure of their hands, warm against her skin, and there's the faint sound of deep, even breathing. Whoever's next to her is asleep. She's having trouble opening her eyes, but she feels _safe_ , so she can let them stay closed just a little longer. 

When Diana hears the breathing beside her hitch, the telltale start of waking, she tells herself that she needs to open her eyes. Any moment now. 

A hand gently brushes a strand of hair back from her face. 

She opens her eyes to _Steve's_ face hovering in front of hers. 

Diana goes through a couple of seconds of thoughtless shock. That can't be right. Unless… 

"I really did try not to die," she croaks. Her vocal cords feel rough and scratchy. 

A half smile twitches onto Steve's face. "You didn't die, Diana. I'm actually here." 

At this, she does the only logical thing there is to do, and bursts into tears. 

It's too much for her to take, too good to possibly be true, and she's already feeling wrung out and totally out of control of her emotions. 

Steve pulls her into a hug, soothes her until she starts to calm down, whispers quiet affirmations in her ear, that he's here and not going anywhere—

A thought hits her and she stiffens. "Oh my gods, my team!" 

"All okay," assures Steve. "The thing was apparently vulnerable while it dosed out its venom, and they were able to take it out while it was busy with you. Vic thinks maybe it had a way of sensing the point of mortality, because they figure that you got at least ten times the dosage and counting of its other victims. They killed it before it was done with you. Gives a whole new meaning to _take one for the team_." He tries to smile, but it just comes across to Diana as forced and pained. 

"They are okay," Diana repeats, brain still a little foggy. She suddenly has to see it for herself; as much as she trusts Steve, she has to talk to each of them, make sure they're really okay, that they're not hiding an injury like Barry did that one time last year—

Before Steve can react, Diana stands and takes three shaky steps towards the door, only to see fireworks exploding in front of her eyes. Her vision goes black for a second and the headrush overtakes her. Diana feels her legs go slack, and then there's a pair of solid arms coming to steady her, to sweep her up. 

She blinks, and Steve's holding her. 

"Where do you think you're going?" 

"To find my team." 

"You were whammied with a still-unknown alien substance that at a tenth the dose you got has a one-hundred percent mortality rate, minus you. Please sit down. They can come to you." 

Once he says it in that incredulously weary tone, it makes perfect sense. _Of course_ they can come to her. She nuzzles her face into Steve's neck, brings a hand up awkwardly against his chest so she can feel his heartbeat under her fingertips. She still feels a little light-headed. 

"Please don't be another dream," she whispers, already feeling a tug from the deep undercurrent, threatening to pull her back into sleep. 

"I'm not. I'll get the others and be right back." 

She feels him drop a soft kiss on the top of her head, and then he deposits her on the bed. Diana thinks maybe she tries to stay awake, but everything goes dark. 

* * *

She snaps back into consciousness much quicker this time, and when she opens her eyes, there are three people next to the bed. 

"Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty," says Bruce, and panic and dread flood through Diana's body, lighting her nerve-endings on fire. 

"Arthur is fine," continues Bruce, who must mistake the stricken look on her face for concern over the missing member of their team. "He just had to get back to Atlantis." 

"He sends his love," says Barry, cheekily. 

"Bruce—" Diana says desperately, and he must understand suddenly just from her tone, because he softens just a little. 

"Barry, Vic, _out._ " 

They leave without protest or quip, which in and of itself is _so_ monumental that if it had been anything else she wanted to talk to Bruce about, it would have to wait to marvel over that. 

"He's in the shower, Diana," Bruce says as soon as they're alone. The breath leaves her in a whoosh of air, and she almost starts crying again. 

"I wasn't sure—" 

"That's understandable; you were pretty out of it. He's real." 

Diana takes a sharp breath to try to steady herself. She trusts Bruce with her life, but she doesn't feel comfortable crying in front of him. 

"You've been pretty out of it for a little over two days," he continues bluntly. Bruce always gives it to her straight. "He didn't leave your side once, and he should be back in about"—he checks his watch—"nine minutes." 

"How—" 

"I don't know." It must kill Bruce to admit, because he _hates_ not knowing things. "He found _us_ , and then refused to leave your side. All I know is that his biological signatures match Steve Trevor's, and he verified every detail I could think of, including the story behind that photograph you have. I have no reason to believe it's not him."

Diana nods, and Bruce, reticent to personal conversations on his best days, gets up to leave. 

"Diana?" he says, pausing as he's about to exit the room, "I'm glad you're okay." 

It's as close to heartfelt as she suspects she'll ever see him get. 

* * *

A damp Steve does, indeed, emerge from the bathroom a few minutes later, in clean sweats and still toweling off his hair. 

She pats the mattress, and he slips under the covers next to her. They lay like that, side by side, fingers twined together and thighs touching. 

"I'm sorry," says Diana, breaking the silence that has fallen, "I don't know why I'm still so tired."

"Angel, you almost _died_." 

"And you're alive." 

She squeezes his hand, and he returns the pressure, picks up on her unasked question. 

"It's certainly a story," he promises. "But for another time."

"How about over breakfast in the morning?" she suggests, and she can feel rather than see the grin blooming over his face.

"You know, I love a good breakfast," says Steve, and she curls into his side. 

This time, Diana falls asleep naturally, to the rhythmic thrum of Steve's heartbeat and the promise of tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading! And stay safe out there xx


	4. the choiceless hope in grief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the battle with Ares, Diana remembers a story from her childhood that sends her on a quest to fix what seems to be unfixable. (My take on a descent into the Underworld, Orpheus-and-Eurydice style.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from hozier's "talk"
> 
> This was supposed to be a little 1k fic but, like most things in my life, it got out of control quickly and ballooned to over 4k, lmao. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I may hurt my characters but then they get to be happy, because what's the point if they don't? I need emotional payoff dammit.
> 
> y'all know the drill—all mistakes are my own

The dust has barely settled on the battlefield when the sun rises, its golden rays peeking through the ashes and the morning mist. 

Diana lands on what's left of the runway, the hard pavement crunching under the force of her boots, tethering her back to the Earth. 

There are shouts, and then out of the rubble come Charlie and Sameer and Napi, bruised and bleeding, but looking little worse for the wear, overall. 

They are alive. 

Steve is not. 

(Are those his ashes, causing the bleeding red of the sunrise, off to the northeast?) 

"Diana!" cries Sameer, rushing forward to check that she's okay. It's more than she deserves. 

"Steve," Diana croaks, when they're in front of her, properly. "I failed him. I'm sorry." 

"You didn't fail him," says Sameer, immediately. 

"He did what he knew was right," adds Napi. "There is honor in that." 

_Honor._ There's honor in a well fought death. There's honor in dying for a cause, on the battlefield. There's honor in sacrifice. That has always been in the teachings of her people.

But fuck honor. To hell with sacrifice, when she should've been able to save him. _He had to do what he knew to be right because of me,_ she thinks, _because I did not act quickly enough._ But she doesn't know how to verbalize this, doesn't know how to make them see that she is not something to be looked at in awe. 

That's how they're looking at her right now—in awe, as if she is some ethereal hero, some benevolent goddess come to solve their woes. She is not. (She is just Diana. She has failed.)

Charlie, of all of them, is the one to touch her arm lightly, and despite how desperately angry she is, she can't bear to throw off his touch. It would hurt him, not her, and she can't abide that. She has caused enough anguish already. 

She allows them to guide her off the airstrip, back to a nearby town, and in doing so, succumbs to her exhaustion, her numbness. 

She has never experienced a greater triumph. But she has never known such failure, or such sorrow. 

* * *

The dust has barely settled in her mind, the fog and numbness starting to retreat, the ashes of her failures swept up to be tightly stored away, when she remembers a story that her mother told her, eons and eons ago. It is like light racing through her veins, hope bubbling and burning across the mists of despondency and sorrow. 

It brings her to her knees, grounding her in the full impact of its implications. 

"Diana?" asks Charlie. 

"I failed him," she whispers. "I failed him, but I will fix this."

"Not everything can be fixed," says Napi, uneasily. 

But Diana is resolute, now. 

* * *

Once upon a time, in a land far darker than this one, in a time of war and strife and primordial beasts, there existed no delineation between the realms. The barriers between the Underworld and Earth and Olympus were weak, and it allowed great creatures, terrible creatures, to roam unfettered, to wreak havoc and spill blood.

And the Gods, in their infinite wisdom, sought to rectify this. They did not, after all, want monsters to roam in the night, destroying their temples and shedding the blood of the people who worshiped them. They filled in the cracks, and made it harder to travel from one plane to another. Little by little, the once permeable borders were patched up, until they were uncrossable, but for a couple of select entrances that were well fortified and heavily guarded. 

Over time, the horrors were sent to the Underworld, imprisoned in the deepest depths of Tartarus, and the world knew something like peace, until the petty squabbles of man became wars, and humanity ravished its own lands all by itself. 

The entrances to the realms of the Gods, meanwhile, were lost over the millennia, faded away, or sealed permanently, or buried by the sands of time. Death became the only way for a mortal to transverse the planes. 

Except, here's the thing about these stories, these rich oral traditions: So long as they are being told, they exist in someone's living memory. 

Sometimes, there exists a corner of the world where such fantastical notions are not lost to time immemorial. 

* * *

"Not everything can be fixed," says Napi, uneasily. Maybe his people had their own version of these stories. Maybe he feels the tug of them, deep in his bones, because he's not entirely of this world either (a child of two realms, like her, but not quite, either).

"I need to get to Themyscira," Diana declares with a fervor that none of them have heard since before Ares was defeated, and Steve died. 

"Darling, they're still trying to clean up the armistice and the War," Etta titters. "They're hardly running trains."

"Then I will journey alone," Diana says. "Do you have the boat that we arrived on?"

"It should be at the dock, still," says Etta nervously. "Diana, I don't like this." 

"I have to go home, Etta," Diana says seriously. "I cannot stay here."

"Oh, well." Etta's lip wobbles. "We'll be sorry to see you go, of course. But we'll do everything we can to get you home." 

Three days later, Diana is setting sail in the same boat that brought them to London. 

* * *

Once upon a time, the Gods entrusted their strongest, bravest warriors with a doorway down to the deepest pits of Hades. Part of their sworn duty was to protect it, and keep it from revealing what was within to the rest of the world. They knew that certain death lay beyond, and they upheld their sacred duty to guard the portal, year after year, millennia after millennia. 

And so, tucked away on a long-forgotten island, there is one remaining gateway on Earth that has not been lost to memory and the turning of the seasons. In a grotto on the very westernmost shore is a slab of stone that can, by some great feat of strength, be moved just enough to reveal a passage that goes directly to Tartarus. 

Tucked away on a little island called Themyscira, forgotten by man and populated by the fiercest warriors that exist, is a primordial horror known only as Doom's Doorway. 

* * *

On the boat, day and night blend together. She doesn't sleep, not really. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees Steve, and Ares, and Antiope, her fallen Amazonian comrades, the children who laughed in the square of Veld, the old woman who smiled softly at her and gave her a room for the night and told her that she'd grown up in the village, and was glad she saw it free again before she died. 

_He sees ghosts,_ echoes Napi's voice, soft in her ear.

For all that her people believe in shades of the dead, she finally understands what it means.

* * *

The sailing itself is not difficult, and Diana knows the island's position based on the stars. Being left alone with her thoughts, however, is another story. 

She did not realize how much she relied on Etta and Charlie and Napi and Sameer in the days after the battle. Even in her haze, they were there to offer comfort and jokes and tea. 

Now, Diana has no distractions, nothing to pull her out of her head, where the guilt festers, goes septic.

There are so many things that Diana cannot fix. She cannot go back and save Veld. She cannot go back and prevent the deaths of her sisters, cannot deflect the bullets they took or staunch the blood they spilt on the soft white sands of the island. She suspects that she cannot even ask for Antiope’s soul, because Antiope is probably reborn already, fierce and ready to face a new life. 

But Steve. 

She clings to this single hope. 

This she can fix, maybe. 

She just has to walk into Hell to do it. 

* * *

Someone must spot her boat from the cliffs, because she’s met by a party of Amazons at the dock. 

"Diana!" her mother flings herself at her, and though Diana allows herself to be hugged, she does not return the embrace. There are too many broken things between her and her mother, now, to feel any comfort from it. "You have returned to us!" 

When the Queen pulls away, Diana says, "I am only passing through. I am here for Doom's Doorway." 

Her mother's eyes narrow, her face pinches. Thousands of years ensconced on an island have not dulled Hippolyta's ability to draw connections about the outside world. 

"The pilot." Said like a dirty word. 

"His name was _Steve,_ " Diana snaps, not proud of the fact that her voice breaks when she says his name. "And he sacrificed himself to save millions of lives." 

"Diana, I cannot let you do this."

"What I do is no longer up to you." Chin held high, eyes blazing, she looks every bit the avenging warrior princess. 

"This is madness!" 

"I am walking through that doorway today," says Diana, voice deadly calm. "It would be a better use of your resources to backstop the doorway behind me, but if that is not the path you choose, I will not hesitate to remove anyone who gets in my way." 

Gone is the little girl who napped on her bed and clamored for her stories. In her place is a tired, heartbroken woman with a resolve of steel. 

"Diana, as your _Queen—_ "

"Have you forgotten that I am the Godkiller, Mother?" 

Hippolyta falls silent. That is the one thing she could never forget, no matter how hard she tried.

* * *

Diana only visited this part of the island once or twice, as a child. The slab of rock that is Doom's Doorway is imposing, ominous. With a battalion of Amazons at her back, ready in case of unknown horrors, she pushes the portal open. 

She feels the tingle of residual magic, of vestigial godly power, even now, millennia later. Beyond is a dank tunnel, humming with the energy of the beasts that await. 

She slips inside, hears the Amazons' efforts to close the doorway. Little by little, the sunlight disappears, and she is left to descend into the inky blackness alone. 

* * *

Once upon a time, there was a woman who descended into the pits of hell, and faced down the creatures that frighten the monsters that parents use to scare their children at bedtime. 

But the vicious creatures that haunt the dark, the stuff of incalculable nightmares—they are used to being the most fearsome, the most deadly. They have ruled supreme here since the Age of Heroes, their foe long dead now, crumbled to dust and nothing but a haunting echo in the wind. 

These monsters, they fight savagely, tooth and claw and sometimes tail and wings, territorial and spoiling for a fight, for a hero to take down, for a chance at escape. 

But what they do not have is resolve, or love. They do not have ache blooming in their chests, or love blossoming in their hearts. They do not have the whisper of a memory, tucked safely away, of low lights and swaying bodies and magical, feathery snowflakes dancing in the air. They do not have the lingering imprint of a touch, soft and steady and kind, against their cheek, or the sting of a cool metal watch, pressed desperately into their hands. 

Diana shows up on their turf and _wins_.

* * *

Physically spent, Diana staggers out of Tartarus and into the Asphodel Fields. She has a long cut down her right bicep and bruising across her cheek, but she is very much alive and has fought her way through every beast that Hell could throw at her. 

(They have all felt the bite of her sword, the sting of her wrath, the determination of her will.)

Asphodel boasts no beasts of legend; instead, spirits flock to her, sensing her light, her warmth and power—but these are not malevolent, simply shades that have found something to break up the monotony of existence here. 

It's disorienting in its own way, because as they feed on her energy and get stronger, they're able to whisper, and so there's a whole chorus of barely-intelligible words around her, like wind through long grass, cacophonous but never quite a symphony. 

She's not sure how long she walks—time doesn't exist in the same way, here—but she finally spies Hades' residence. The palace is made of obsidian, and soars high into the cavern, its spires lost in the twisting darkness. 

Diana pummels the door once, twice, three times, and the sound echoes through this corner of the Underworld. The door—previously locked tight—creaks open, and Diana steps into the shadowy palace. 

The long halls blend together, and then suddenly, she is deposited into a sparkling, brilliantly lit throne room. There are two thrones, both in use, their occupants swathed in shimmering robes. 

Persephone and Hades, holding court. She _knew_ they'd still be alive, if any of the gods were. 

"I desire to come in peace," says Diana, stopping only when she is directly in front of the dais. 

"That's not the same thing as actually doing so." 

"No, it is not," she agrees. "I have come for Steve Trevor. How we proceed is up to you."

"It's been a long time since someone has come here in search of reclaiming a soul," Hades muses. 

"It has been a long time since someone killed a God, and I did that last week," says Diana with more confidence than she feels. "I will accept a task or a challenge," she continues, "if that is what you desire, but I am not leaving here without Steve." 

"You think highly of yourself." 

"Hubris is not my fatal flaw," says Diana, pointedly. "Mine is that I will burn down kingdoms to save someone that I love." 

Hades appraises her for a few moments, then sighs. "Very well. I'm feeling magnanimous today. I'll collect the soul of Steve Trevor, and we'll negotiate from there." 

He's there and then he isn't, like he slid into a shadow and vanished. Diana eyes the spot from which he disappeared, and then slides her appraising gaze over to Persephone. 

For all the lore might claim otherwise, the Underworld seems to suit her sister. She's got a commanding presence but is utterly relaxed, comfortable and sure of her place. 

"You went to great lengths to get here." 

Diana examines her, mulling over a response. 

"So did you, once upon a time." 

Persephone smirks. 

"The things we do for love. This mortal, is he worth it?"

Diana shrugs helplessly. "To me he is." 

Persephone looks contemplative. "We love differently than the humans do." 

"Is it not just a matter of perspective?"

Persephone's lip twists and she looks pleased, but before she can answer, Hades re-solidifies on the throne and with him is—

"Steve." 

He's translucent, more nothing than anything, but it's definitely him and he's growing more stable, more person-like with every second he spends in the presence of three gods. 

"Diana?" He sounds a little confused, but it's still music to her ears, the timbre of his voice comforting. For the first time in—what has it been? Days? Weeks?—she feels like she can breathe. "Did you die too?"

"No, my love, I am here to bring you back," says Diana, fighting to keep her voice steady. She doesn't get to break down yet. The journey is only half done, and bitter challenges still lie ahead. "I've come to bring you back to the world of the living, but I will not do so without your permission." 

"I'll come," agrees Steve immediately. "Anywhere you lead, I would follow." 

"Touching," interrupts Hades, drolly, "truly, it is, but I've got better things to do, and no inclination to stay here any longer. An Orpheus agreement will do just fine. Standard terms. No looking back, or I get to keep the soul." 

He waves his hand, and then saunters out of the throne room.

"Good luck," mouths Persephone, and then follows him. 

"Steve," says Diana seriously, meeting his gaze, "we have very little time. The second we leave this room, I can't look back. It's going to be a very long, very tough journey." 

"I'll keep talking to you," Steve promises. 

"Good. I will see you on the other side, my love." Diana takes a deep breath, locks eyes with Steve one last time, and then turns and strides out of the room.

* * *

Once upon a time, the myths said that the ascent from the Underworld was too quiet. That because poor Orpheus could not hear the footsteps of Eurydice's shade, he went mad with doubt, and, second-guessing Hades' boon, turned to check, only to lose her forever. 

If only the myths were true. 

It would be kinder than the reality. 

* * *

The first part of the journey, across the plains of Asphodel, is uneventful. She wants to be able to look at him, but it's not an overwhelming desire. She lets herself believe, for a moment, that this might work. 

It's not long after they cross back into Tartarus that things deteriorate, and rapidly. Up until this point, things had been quiet, save for the occasional word or anecdote from Steve to confirm his continued presence. 

Behind her, there's a grunt, like someone has taken a sucker punch, and then scuffling, and a whimper. 

_I'm in pain._ She's sure Steve's just said it, schools herself before she whips her head around to check. 

_Please, Diana._ It's his voice, she's sure of it. 

She's not sure at all. It's him, but just a little wrong, two degrees to the left. 

"Steve?" 

More groans. 

"I'm here, Diana." 

That one's him, maybe. 

_Why are you doing this? I was part of the problem, you thought so yourself._

She's not sure why he's bringing this up _now_ , but she probably deserves it. Anxious and on edge, she replies, "You were not part of the problem; I should never have implied it."

"Diana?" Confusion, and—pain? "What are you talking about?"

There are snarls, suddenly, and otherworldly hissing, and more whimpers that can mean only terrible pain. 

"I—" she starts, suddenly unsure, "I'm sorry." 

_Help me._

"You're sorry? _I'm_ sorry."

Horrible sounds, and then sobs, soft, like he's trying to conceal it. 

She cannot look back. 

* * *

On this journey, there are no monsters for her to fight. She has slain them all, sent them back to the deepest recesses of the Underworld to cower and lick their wounds. 

There is nothing to rip at her skin, to spill her blood, to feel the sharp bite of her steel. Nothing to vanquish. No foe to face down.

But this is the truth of the world: Not all monsters are corporeal. Not all monsters are corporeal, and _everything_ comes at a cost. 

* * *

"Do you want me to turn around?" 

It is an unbearable question, but one she must ask. He shouldn't have to suffer for her, _because_ of her. 

"No," says Steve, voice tight. What is he enduring that he isn’t telling her? 

_Yes_ , say the hissing voices that sound like Steve. 

_Turn around, Diana._

_Don't make me go through this._

She whimpers, disoriented. 

"Whatever they're telling you, it's a lie," pleads Steve, but his voice sounds pained, jagged around the edges. "Listen to me, Diana, this voice right here." 

_You wouldn't help me then, and you're not helping me now, when I need it. You're being selfish._

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." 

"You don't need to be, Diana, not even a little bit." 

_If you loved me, you would let me go._

"I could do it, for you," Diana chokes. "I could let you go, if you wanted me to." It would break her, but she would do it. 

"Don't even think about it." 

_Please. Please, I don't know how much more of this I can take._

She cannot suppress the sob that claws its way up her throat. 

"We can make it, Diana. _You_ can make it."

_Look back, look back._

_Let me go; it would be worth it to see your face one more time. If you love me, let me go._

It's getting harder to tell what's real, what's illusion. She's never wanted to turn her head _so much,_ to check. 

"You were the first time that I had hope, real hope, in four years. If anyone can do this, it's you."

She treads on, wincing at every sound she hears, wracked by guilt. 

* * *

Diana has never been more grateful to see a slab of rock. She's itchy, almost, from resisting a peek over her shoulder, and shaking from the stream of groans, of sobs, of _torture_ behind her, even as Steve does his best to pretend like he's not enduring extreme pain. She wishes it had been her instead that the Underworld was hurting. 

Doom's Doorway is even heavier from the inside. It takes everything in her, every ounce of strength, both goddess and mortal, to move it even a centimetre. 

But slowly, slowly—inhibited by the fact that she has to squeeze her eyes shut to make sure she doesn't accidentally look at Steve—the slab of rock moves. 

One centimetre, then two, then five, and then there's shouting on the other side, and Diana has never been so relieved to hear her compatriots in her life.

"It is Diana of Themyscira," she calls. 

With one more massive push, and the last bit of her strength, she moves the slab far enough to the side to allow for the passage of a person. She slips out, into the bright shine of the sun, and staggers three steps before falling to her knees. 

She covers her eyes, sensitive to the blinding light, and weeps, exhaustion overtaking her. 

Shouts of _secure the doorway!_ reverberate around the grotto, and a legion of Amazons must fall in line, because the scrape of rock becomes audible. 

"Diana," says a voice behind her, softly. 

She shakes her head, unwilling to turn. She doesn't believe it's over. After all this, she's not sure it's true, that this is it, that they’re safe. 

"Diana, the doorway is closed. We're in the sunlight. It's over." 

A hand touches her shoulder, solid and _warm_. Tangible. 

A shadow falls over her as he moves around her, and then there’s a thud as he lands on his knees in front of her. 

“Diana,” he whispers, “you did it. We’re safe.” 

She lowers her hands slowly, and when her eyes open, Steve is in front of her. She gasps, a shaking, shuddering thing, and then pulls him into her arms, a fresh wave of sobs overtaking her in her relief. 

A pair of strong arms come up around her, and she leans into his embrace, holds him close and marvels at the fact that he’s solid and there in her arms. That she somehow, against all odds, succeeded. 

She pulls back, just enough to look at him. He’s sooty, and looks a little worse for the wear, as though perhaps he was restored precisely as he was in the seconds before the explosion. (She sees no trace of their ascent.) Indeed, he’s wearing a grin, and there’s light in his eyes, and when she touches his face, he sighs a little, involuntary, and _she_ _did it._

“It feels good to be alive,” says Steve in his trademark bemused deadpan, and a startled laugh escapes her. 

His eyes darken, and before she can convince herself not to, she kisses him, slow and deep. He responds enthusiastically, nipping gently at her lower lip, pulling her even closer so that they’re entirely tangled together. 

There are plenty of things to discuss, but they have time for that later. They have _time._ For now, she can enjoy the kiss. 

* * *

Myths do not have happily-ever-afters. They have lessons, warnings, morals: do not anger the Gods, do not go against the natural order of things, do not be prideful. Their conclusions are, more often than not, woeful. Show me a happy myth, and I’ll show you someone who’s missed the point. 

But this is not a myth. 

Fairytales do not show life, as it really is. They end at the bit where it seems like things are just beginning, and tell us instead that everything remains just so for the rest of time, expect us to believe that conflict no longer exists, when that’s not how life works. They hide the messy bits, and in doing so, hide the parts that make the happily-ever-after worth it. 

This is not a fairytale, either. 

There is no happily-ever-after, but there is _happy_. There is no moral, but there is growth, and self-reflection, and the promise of doing better today than yesterday. It’s all anyone can hope for, really. 

* * *

She was gone from Themyscira for more than a week, convincing everyone that she'd died. She's ready to set sail right away, bring Steve back to his friends in London, but Steve convinces her to stay a few days, citing the fact that he'd really like another go at the "magic healing pools." She knows that it's really for her. 

The first thing they actually do is fall into bed, exhausted. After all, Steve's just come back from the dead (it takes rather a lot of energy) and she's gone days without sleep, her eyes itchy and leaden. She holds him close the whole night, and sleeps better than she has in ages. 

The conversation, later, with Hippolyta is difficult. 

"You're leaving again, aren't you." Her mother always knows. 

"Yes, Mother."

"There's nothing I can do to make you stay." 

"I will come back." She means it, too. Broken things can be fixed, and she loves her mother, even though she's still angry. 

"Be safe, my daughter." 

* * *

Etta almost falls over when she opens the door and finds them both standing there. She wastes no time in getting messages out to Sameer and Napi and Charlie that they need to come at once. 

“He is whole,” says Napi, later, sitting down next to her at the impromptu celebration dinner Etta has thrown together, and she knows that he doesn’t mean physically. 

“I would not have brought him back if he was not going to be.” 

Napi sits with that for a moment, contemplating. “I wasn’t sure _what_ you would have been willing to do, Diana. And there was no guarantee—we lose something when we die.” 

“Yes, and no,” says Diana. “I was lucky. Steve believed in the Greek gods at the moment of his death, and it meant the whole of him was there to find again.” 

Napi hums. “Intention,” is all he says. 

“Precisely.” 

They sit in companionable silence for a while, watching Steve and Charlie and Sameer arguing over some card game or another that they're playing. 

It's nice, not feeling like there's a tank resting on her chest. 

* * *

The World of Man is still strange and new. It is still confusing and frustrating and logic-defying. There is a social code she doesn't understand, and after learning, often doesn't want to follow. (But she has someone to face it with, again.)

She has plenty of work to do: Ares had years to poison humanity, and as someone very dear to her once said, people aren't just one thing. They're more complex than just _good_ or _bad,_ and they need compassion. Kindness is the only way forward. _Love_ is the only way forward. It will be a struggle, but the things that are worth it always are. (She knows that all too well.)

The dust has barely settled on the War, on the pain that it caused each of them, but Diana finds herself getting to work, with the promise of each tomorrow. There's time, now, to figure things out, to learn what humanity _can be_ like with no wars. This is no place for myths and fairytales, maybe, but Diana gets a new beginning for them to relish. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> besitos! thx for reading! obligatory "stay safe" reminder xx


	5. wasteland, baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: omg they were quarantined! 
> 
> Diana gets Steve back right as the world falls apart, and they go from there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not quite as fluffy as the prompt suggests BUT I want to be clear that as always, no Steves were harmed in the making of the fic.

Diana gets Steve back on Thursday, and the world falls apart on Tuesday. 

* * *

It's been coming; she's not surprised. She makes it a point to read world news, and she's been seeing reports of the novel coronavirus since the beginning of January. She knew it was coming, and that it would be bad, even if the rest of the world didn't. (She remembers the Spanish Flu. How could she not, when it caused so much suffering her first year in the mortal world? She remembers, its impact forever etched into her brain, even if the memory of the last great pandemic has faded from the collective consciousness.) 

It tracks, too, that the moment that she might be happy is also the moment when she can't enjoy it because humanity needs her more. (Maybe humanity will always need her more.) 

Steve shows up on a Thursday, and they have the happiest weekend that Diana has had in a very long time, despite the mounting cases and terrifying news out of China, Iran, and Italy. 

On Tuesday, President Macron locks the country down, and a new reality sinks in.

* * *

"Do you remember the Spanish Flu?" They're sitting on the balcony, watching the police vehicles drive slowly down the street, enforcing curfew for the evening. 

Steve looks at her as though she's gone insane. 

"It killed hundreds of thousands of people in less than a year. Of course I remember the Spanish Flu." 

"However bad you knew it to be, it got _so_ much worse after you died. Incomprehensibly worse," Diana says quietly. "It killed between thirty and fifty million people, in the end."

Steve closes his eyes. "I can't even picture that number," he admits, solemn. 

"It is not something the mind can fathom, really. The point is, it got worse before it got better." 

"You think this is going to get worse." 

"I think it's going to get worse, and then it's going to get worse _again_. People in this time, they do not remember what a pandemic looks like. They do not understand." 

"So we do what this Macron fellow says. We quarantine." 

" _You_ are going to quarantine," Diana corrects, and Steve raises an eyebrow. 

"The last time this happened, I had to do something, so I trained as a nurse. I have a proper medical degree, now, even though I prefer working in antiquities." 

Steve shuts his eyes, exhales roughly. "You're going to work on the frontlines." 

"I _have_ to." 

"Diana—" 

"I cannot get sick, not with a mortal-born illness. I have to help. I cannot do nothing." 

"I was only going to say that I would have expected nothing less." 

"Oh." 

"We'll figure this out." 

* * *

They draw up, in essence, battle plans. Diana divides the apartment up. She takes the bedroom and bathroom closest to the front door, and forbids Steve from entering either. After all, she cannot get the virus, but it doesn't mean she cannot bring it home with her, on clothes or skin, despite all precautions otherwise. She knows it's extreme, but she can't help it. 

"I'm not an at-risk population," Steve says. "If you take care to wash up, we don't need to go to all this trouble." 

"We don't know _what_ you are!" Diana snaps. "You could have underlying medical conditions no one thought to test for in 1918. Whatever brought you back could have strict conditions. You probably don't even have modern immunizations!"

"Diana—"

"I can't lose you!" she yells. "I can't lose you again, and I couldn't possibly bear it if I lost you and it was my fault!" 

She's immediately wrapped up in a tight hug, and it's soothing. She feels her heart rate slow reflexively. (She'd forgotten what it was like to be embraced like this, simple and grounding and heart-breakingly perfect.) 

"I'll isolate," he whispers in her ear. "We'll be careful, and I'll be okay." 

"We can't be sure of that." 

"Nothing is for sure," says Steve. "We just try our best and believe." 

* * *

Diana is gone for long stretches, sometimes 24, 36 hours at a time. Even goddesses need sleep occasionally, and she often comes home exhausted, ready to collapse, usually more drained mentally than physically. 

Having Steve there is a blessing and a curse, because he's closer than he's ever been, and yet, somehow, just as far as ever. 

Both bedrooms have little balconies, and most days, they sit on opposite sides of the wall and talk. It's better than nothing, but it's not enough. Two metres seems like an ocean, sometimes.

"I've never been good at being cooped up," Steve admits one morning, early—it can't hardly be quarter past five, and Diana has just gotten home from a brutal shift. 

There's enough of a pause that he thinks maybe Diana has fallen asleep. 

"I have a small cottage in the south," she says, finally. "Very simple, but it's in the countryside and has land attached to it. Plenty of room for meandering. I could get you there." 

"I'm not leaving you," Steve says fiercely. "Just because I feel a little antsy doesn't mean I'll let you face this alone." 

She feels a little guilty at how relieved she is by his answer. 

* * *

"When all this is over, let's go somewhere, just for fun. No mission, no war." Steve's sitting on the balcony, soaking in the afternoon sun.

The very idea of an after seems like a beautiful dream. She knows it'll come, eventually, but for now, it seems unreal. Time has a sticky quality to it, right now, that makes anything other than a now seem impossible.

"Where would you go? Anywhere in the world, take your pick." 

"I saw a lot of Europe and the Middle East the first time around," Steve muses. "But I never made it to Asia. I think I'd like to see the Great Wall. I used to read about it in travelogues." 

Imagining a young Steve reading travelogues and dreaming of far off places makes Diana smile, a welcome respite from everything. "We will go to China, then. There is so much to see there, and so many different types of amazing food... Oh! You should look up the terracotta army; that was rediscovered in the '70s, and it is truly spectacular." 

"I'll Google it when you leave for your shift." 

Diana nods, pleased. "I love Xi'an. The folk market there is lovely," she reminisces, a far away quality to her voice. "And we can rent bicycles and ride around the walls of the Old City." 

"Sounds like fun." 

"It will be." Someday. 

* * *

It's three in the morning when Diana gets home. She was supposed to get back hours ago, but the hospital was short-staffed, and someone else needed to be off shift more than she did. 

It was carnage. They don't have enough ventilators, and even if they did, they can't save everyone. 

Diana's watched too many people die already. 

She opens her window, looking for air, because it suddenly feels like she's suffocating. 

"There's pasta in the fridge." Steve is on the opposite balcony. How he's awake at this hour she has no idea. 

"Thanks," she mumbles, throat dry. 

"It's getting worse, isn't it." 

Diana chokes back a sob. "I lost six patients today. One of them was only nineteen, a child who was exposed working at a supermarket. He said he felt like he was drowning in his own lungs. I couldn't save him." Her voice breaks on the last sentence, and she starts to cry. 

Steve feels helpless; he's not even allowed to hold her. 

"And there was an eighty-six year old," she continues, unable to stop the tears. "She qualified for a ventilator, but she told us to give it to a young person. That she'd lived her life, and someone else should get to live theirs." 

"That's a kind of brave that people shouldn't have to be," says Steve. 

He thinks he sees her nodding in the darkness. "I held her hand," she chokes. "There were so many other people I should've been attending to also. But I stayed to hold her hand. I couldn't let her die alone." 

He wants to hold her so badly. He can't make this go away, can't vanish her pain, but it would be just a little bit more bearable if he could hold her. 

"There was no easy option," whispers Steve. "And there was never going to be a right answer. But compassion is never a bad thing, Diana." 

"Watching suffering never gets easy. You would think it would, but it does not, and I don't know how much more I can take." 

"It's not fair," Steve says. "But you bear it so they don't have to." 

"I'm tired," says Diana, and Steve knows she doesn't mean physically. 

"I know, love." 

He spends the rest of the night fervently wishing he could do something—anything—to help her. 

(Sometimes, the universe listens.) 

* * *

It's not the universe, but rather a family member, that answers the unintended call. 

The next morning, a woman materializes in their empty kitchen. 

When Diana sees her, she thinks at first that it is a child, the figure is so small and slight. She's disabused of that notion the moment she sees the woman's eyes, which glow like softly burning embers. The rest of her looks human, but for the eyes, made doubly disconcerting by their lack of whites. A goddess, then. 

"I haven't a lot of power over most things," the woman says, her voice surprisingly deep for her stature. "But this is the one place I do." 

"My apartment?" asks Diana. 

"Paris?" asks Steve, who has heard the strange voice and come out of his room, at precisely the same time. 

"Your home," the woman corrects. 

Diana's never considered this place home, not really, but as soon as the woman says it, she knows it's true. It has, inexplicably, become home.

"You have power in our home," Steve repeats. 

_Our_ home. Not so inexplicable after all. 

"Yes," the woman affirms. 

"Hestia," says Diana in understanding. 

The woman—goddess— _Hestia_ —smiles, all soft 'round the edges. 

"I cannot answer the questions you have," says Hestia. "I cannot bestow immortality, or sweeping gifts, nor can I tell you of the future. These are gifts of other gods. But I do have a little power over the home." She pauses. "From this moment forth, no harm shall befall him within this home." A wave of hazy bronze light ripples out from Hestia's chest, and engulfs the apartment before fading. 

Steve hears Diana's sharp intake of breath, her understanding of what's implied. 

"At what price?" she asks, warily. 

"No strings, child. In times like these, we can all use a little bit of hope and comfort." 

When Hestia dematerializes in a flash of light, there's a beat in which they remain where they are, frozen. Then Diana flies into Steve's arms, and starts to cry. Steve cries, too, in relief. 

* * *

At night, when Diana comes home, she collapses into _their_ bed. Steve no longer has to stay up to all hours for a few stolen moments; instead, he can sleepily reach out and pull her close.

In the mornings, they cook breakfast together. (Diana is partial to pancakes; Steve prefers French toast.) 

There is catharsis in quarantining together, instead of apart. 

* * *

It gets worse before it gets better. 

People get careless, complacent when it looks like numbers are going down. Numbers spike again, and then spike some more before they level off. The lockdown eases, and then tightens, cycling as the curve flattens and then rises again. Diana spends more time in the hospital than out of it. 

But it's human to find small bits of joy tucked away in forgotten corners; it's human to find hope and resilience and take energy from that. 

For Diana, it's Steve. His smile, his humor. Even in the middle of the metaphorical darkness, his deadpan wit makes her smile and laugh and feel _joyful._ Even when things seem bleak, she feels safe and loved every night that they get to spend wrapped around each other, talking and trading kisses. 

In the midst of chaos, they find projects to stave off the boredom and forget, just for a little bit, the toll that COVID is taking. Steve finds he rather enjoys embroidery, because he isn't nearly so bored and jittery when his hands are occupied. (He makes all sorts of delicately embroidered throw pillows, and then graduates to dirtily-phrased and profanity-filled dish towels.) Diana makes lavender soap with dried flowers that she harvested last year, and then Steve interjects that his mother's soap recipe was a little different, and they play with the formula until they're satisfied with the result and the floor of the kitchen is an absolute _mess_. 

In the evenings, sometimes, they videocall Diana's friends. Most frequent is Etta's granddaughter Allison, who's living in Cardiff. Another is Barry, a rambunctious kid who's isolating out of duty but is antsier than Steve, and who is Diana's favorite member of the Justice League. And then there's Inès, one of Diana's closest friends from the Louvre, who's always fun to talk to in part for her biting humor and in part because she's got two adorable toddlers that often bomb the calls, looking for attention. They squeeze into the tiny videoframe, pressed together shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh to wave through the screen and blow kisses, reassure their friends that this won't last forever, laugh and joke with them and pretend they're across the room instead of through a phone. 

Life, however altered, marches along, slowly but surely. 

* * *

"There is an approved vaccine that has moved into mass production," says Diana the moment she opens the door one sunny Saturday afternoon, fourteen months after this all started. "I have just heard confirmation. As medical workers, we are scheduled to get ours two weeks from Monday. You are getting mine," she says. 

"Is that even legal?" Steve jokes. 

"No, probably not, but it will physically have no effect on my body, and I've decided to be selfish today. It is going to you." It's clear from the tone of her voice that this is not up for discussion. 

"Copy that," says Steve. "Do I get this before or after my second MMR dosage?" 

They've been slowly catching Steve up on all the other vaccinations that children usually get that he missed out on. 

"After," says Diana. "That's next week, along with your last rabies encephalitis dose." She pauses to check the chart she made, hanging in the kitchen. "And then you'll be all up to date, except for yellow fever and Japanese encephalitis, which you shouldn't need unless we're traveling, so we can put that off another month or two." 

"So long as it's before China." 

Diana smiles, and he can see the weight slowly lifting off her, the knowledge that things are starting to return to something approaching normal. It will take time, and there are still plenty of hurdles left to overcome, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, blinding and beautiful. 

"Before China."

They're going to spend a month there at least, maybe more. They've spent plenty of evenings discussing the cities they want to see, the foods they want to eat, the hikes they want to experience. Soon, the hoping and planning will become reality. 

It's going to be wonderful. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I actually wrote this back in April, to process some of my covid emotions, and I've never been more devastated to be proven right (it *is* getting worse, at least in the US, Brazil, etc, although hopefully this won't be a trend again in the rest of the world). While our characters got a boon from Hestia and a convenient time-lapse to a vaccine, covid continues to be extremely serious; I hope you're all being socially distant, wearing masks, and staying safe xx


	6. colors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A couple of vignettes to demonstrate why Steve is very sure that Diana's color is blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The wondertrev bingo event ended awhile ago, but I had these last fills just sitting in my WIP folder, so I decided to lightly edit, toss them up, and close out the fic. Until next time; hope you enjoy!

**_(one hundred years ago)_ **

Steve is bullshitting his way through the most perfect German of his entire life and possibly the most successful buttering up of a target in his entire career as a spy, toeing the line between focused on the conversation and just casual enough that his interest isn't too suspicious when his eyes flick around the room and he catches sight of—

Diana. 

He is struck dumb. He can't think; his sentence trails off. He already knew she was the most beautiful person he'd ever seen, but he'd tried so hard not to think about it, and now—

Now she's here, looking like a goddess.

The blue of her dress is as vivid as the azure sky that framed her face the first time he saw her and for a second he's transported. Maru sneers at him in disgust, and he only half cares, because she's got a determined expression on her face, making her look every bit the avenging warrior princess that she is, and he _can't think._

* * *

**_(present)_ **

Steve doesn't realize that he strongly associates Diana with the color blue, until Bruce erroneously says that _red_ is her color. 

The whole thing is stupid, really. How much it affects him, how trivial it is. They're in Gotham for Justice League business, and Bruce has asked them to stay an extra day for a function that he thinks could yield some important intelligence. Steve and Diana are coming from a laser tag outing with Vic and Barry, so they change at the venue, and Steve happens to be sitting with Bruce, fiddling with his cufflinks, when Diana emerges from the bathroom, dressed in a red evening gown. 

"Red's really your color, Diana," remarks Bruce casually, and Steve's first, visceral reaction is _no, you're wrong._

* * *

**_(last week)_ **

As a superhero-slash-museum curator and international covert operative-slash-spy, Diana and Steve lead rather busy lives. Somewhere along the way, they decided to carve out time at least one evening a month for a proper date of some sort. This one has been planned for three weeks, but there was some question as to whether it would come to fruition—fortunately Steve got back to Paris the night before, ahead of schedule. 

Diana, meanwhile, got caught up in a meeting and is coming directly from work, and when she slips into the seat across from him, Steve's surprised to see her in a sundress, deep blue with little daisies, especially lovely in the low light. It's notable only because she'd been wearing one of her suits when she left for the Louvre that morning. The thought is there and gone, because the way she huffs as she sits tells him everything he needs to know about her day. 

"Who did you get into a fight with today?"

Diana shoots him a reproachful look. "Why must you always assume I got into a fight with someone?"

Steve merely lifts an eyebrow, and Diana lets out another huff. 

"It was Marcel, because he keeps holding up a repatriation petition." 

Steve hums sympathetically. 

"I mean, cultural history belongs to everyone, but artifacts should first and foremost belong to the countries they were stolen from!" 

Part of the reason Diana got back into the world of antiquities was to lobby for pieces to be returned. 

"Is this still about the Grecian marbles?" 

(Greece had asked for a set of marbles back, and Diana has been in a bureaucratic battle on and off for months now trying to get it approved.) 

"Yes. I cannot even imagine the fights we would be having if I was in the Egyptology Department." 

Steve can't, either.

"And then he tried to pull the _preservation_ argument on me! As if I have not sat on every single committee and gone to every conference about preservation techniques."

(Steve could probably bullshit his way through an entire Master's, at least, just by having listened to Diana on this subject.) 

"I am all for ensuring that pieces will be properly cared for, but it's not _our_ cultural patrimony, it is theirs, and it should not stay in French hands. But you know my thoughts on this," Diana sighs. "How was your day?" 

"Waller was nice to me today, which has to mean there's a shit-storm coming, right?" he says of his boss, and he counts it as a win when it pulls a smile out of Diana. 

From there the conversation flows towards lighter subjects—an article they both read, weekend plans with friends, the adorable sheltie that lives two floors down—and by the time they leave the restaurant, the mood is considerably improved. They pop into an open art gallery that they come across on the walk home just because they can (although it's far too influenced by tacheism for either of their tastes), and then stumble across a gentleman playing cello in the park just down the block from their house. 

Diana's eyes light up, and she slips her hand back into his and tugs him forward down the cobblestone path, then spins and holds out her other hand to him, eyes bright and questioning, and it never even occurs to him not to accept. 

The evening streetlights make her skin glow, the deep blue of her dress rich against her skin and almost a match for the velvety indigo of the darkening sky, and he pulls her a little closer as they rock back and forth to the notes of the concierto the man is playing. Around and around they turn, and then another pair of bystanders start dancing too, and another. Diana's grin gets even bigger, and he feels his own growing to mirror hers, swept away in the feel of swaying with her in the warm night air. 

  
  


* * *

**_(present)_ **

It's not that Diana doesn't look fantastic in red. She does. (Steve's yet to find a color or an outfit that she doesn't look great in, sweatpants and a two-day-old t-shirt included.) But Bruce is obviously wrong, because _blue_ is Diana's color. 

Diana's brow furrows, and she looks at him questioningly—obviously his reaction was splashed across his face—so he pulls himself together and shakes his head almost imperceptibly. Diana lets it go for now, but Steve knows she'll follow up on it later. 

Bruce, however, is either oblivious or excellent at appearing to be, and they make their way into the hall where the event is being held. 

* * *

**_(two months ago)_ **

Diana has been planning to change the guest room in her flat for ages. But last week, she found some lovely new curtains that spurred her into action, and now she's got several litres of paint and quite a lot of ambition. 

"When, exactly, was the last time you painted anything?" 

It's Steve, leaning against the door frame, looking far more amused than he has any right to be. 

Diana tosses him a fondly annoyed look. "It was the sixties, but how difficult can it be?" 

"More difficult than you think it'll be, but less difficult than _I_ think it'll be?" 

She considers him a moment. "Yes, probably." 

"When do we start?" 

Diana bites back a smile, and doesn't bother to ask if he's sure, because he wouldn't offer if he didn't mean it. 

"As soon as you change into something that can get paint on it." She gestures at her own get-up: double denim—the top thin and faded and already sporting several frays—and a matching blue kerchief tying back her hair from her face. 

Steve shrugs on a different shirt and returns to find Diana taping off the trim. The room is bright and airy, the windows open in anticipation of the paint fumes, and a ray of sunshine slants across her face, illuminating her bronzed skin like something out of a classical painting. 

Steve has always found Diana beautiful, but sometimes these little moments leave him breathless, knock him over in their soft simplicity. He stands there a moment watching her as she smoothes the tape, creating perfectly crisp lines. He must shift his weight, because the floorboard under him creaks, and Diana turns, smiling at the ratty novelty shirt he's slipped on, a relic from being caught in a rainstorm while hiking at a national park in the US. 

"Good, you are ready!" she says brightly, handing him a paintbrush. "We'll cut in, and then use the rollers after!" 

Diana's right: it's easier than Steve thought, but perhaps slightly more complicated than her original assessment of _how hard can it be?_ because trying to achieve the same level of paint thickness with the brush and the roller requires some trial and error. 

"What, no, _Steve—_ " Diana laughs, having decided he's painting the wrong way, as he goes against the grain to try to fill in a stubborn spot. 

In what he'll later call a moment of temporary insanity, his instinct is to turn on Diana and swipe his brush across her nose in response. 

She recoils a moment, shock evident in her eyes, and for a second, Steve thinks maybe he's misjudged terribly, and then—

Quick as lightning, she flicks her brush out, and then he's wearing a matching strip across his cheek, cool and viscous. It's rapidly paired with a small spatter across his shoulder, and her laugh rings out, mischief dancing in her eyes. 

"Oh, it's _on._ " 

They chase each other around the sunny room, trading shots and splatters until Steve lets go of his brush to catch Diana around the waist, and they go down still laughing, sprawling out breathlessly. It's a good thing Diana thought to put down a tarp, because the floor looks like a monochrome Jackson Pollock painting.

"It looks nice," says Steve from his position on the floor. 

"It does," Diana agrees, and leans over to give him a quick kiss on his non-painted cheek. 

* * *

**_(present)_ **

It's really not that big of a deal. Steve's a spy, and a damn good one, for the most part. He goes into work mode and is entirely focused through three painful dances after they've all fanned out, one search of an upstairs room, and a difficult interrogation. He's mission-oriented as equipment is donned and the call goes out to Vic, who's still in Gotham, to assist with the takedown. 

But then he's sitting in Control, with Alfred and Bruce (who was sidelined by Diana because _you're too close to this, Bruce; you lose all logic when anyone so much as mentions Selina, and she might be wrapped up in this_ ) and he's got very little to do, which means his mind wanders. 

And the thing is, now that he's thought about it, he can't get it out of his head. He pictures Diana framed by a cerulean sky; he sees her in a navy overcoat; he remembers, vividly, the showstopping blue gown she wore to German High Command. He thinks of an electric blue pantsuit with sky-high shoulder pads from the '80s. He recalls a sun-soaked moment of her in a faded blue shirt and kerchief, falling over in laughter as they repaint the guest room, swiping each other with almost as much paint as they do the walls. He settles on the memory of a sapphire sun dress patterned with tiny, interspersed daisies and the way she smiled and grabbed his hand and pulled him into a dance. 

He thinks, too, about her gentleness. Her kindness. Her love. All of the strength that goes into each of those traits. All of it exemplified by rich blues. (To be fair, he genuinely doesn't know if he associates blue with those things, or if he associates those things with Diana, and Diana with blue. It's a conundrum that he'll probably never solve.) 

* * *

"Do you want to tell me what was wrong earlier?" she asks once all is said and done and they're in their apartment.

It's a genuine question, not one of those passive-aggressive pointed ones; he could say no, and that would be the end of it. 

"Bruce," Steve says.

"Forgive me, but that hardly narrows it down. He was in rare form tonight." 

"It's stupid," mumbles Steve. "But he said red is your color when it's clearly blue." 

The statement startles a laugh out of Diana.

"German High Command?" she asks. 

Steve flushes a little. "Yeah, but it's more than that. It's more than an outfit or three, it's—you. And your energy. You're unfailingly kind and gentle, and red just—isn't? It shouldn't bother me; I'm being ridiculous." 

Diana looks at him softly. "You see me in a way that Bruce does not," she says simply, as if this explains it—and in a way, he finds it does. "I appreciate that you always find the best in me, even when you have seen the worst, too." 

"Isn't that just love?" 

"Not everyone is so lucky." 

Later, she puts on a pair of blue pajamas—flannel, entirely practical, and dotted with moons and stars—and when he sees them, he laughs. 

"Yep, definitely your color." 

She thinks so, too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to every single person who's taken the time to read my little drabbles—I appreciate you all! xx

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for endulging me in the little places my brain runs off to! hope you're all staying safe xx


End file.
